1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a digital video receiver and, in particular, to a digital content processing apparatus and method of the digital video receiver that is capable of controlling a playback speed of the digital content.
2. Description of the Related Art
Streaming content is constantly received by and presented to an end user while being delivered by a streaming content provision server. Accordingly, a client or a plug-in starts playback without waiting for all of the content to be completely downloaded. As a result, the streaming method is advantageous in its quick playback startup and small storage space requirement. In order to seamlessly play the streaming content, the client has to collect the streaming data such that the data can be continuously provided to the audio and video application programs. When the streaming data is received at relatively high data rate, the client buffers the streaming data and regulates the output data rate. However, when the streaming data is received at relatively low data rate, for example, due to a bad network condition or problem with the client device, the data is played abnormally.
A Video On Demand (VOD) system provides subscribers with Transport Stream (TS) packets using Real Time Transport Protocol (RTP) and Real Time Stream Protocol (RTSP). A digital video receiver stores the VOD content within an internal storage device and plays the VOD content in response to user's selection. In the VOD system, if the user requests a high speed playback of the VOD content, the server transmits the TS packets formatted in the high playback speed corresponding to that requested by the user. For example, the client device stores different playback speed-formatted data corresponding to the respective 2-speed, 3-speed, and 4-speed playback. However, this conventional playback speed control method has a drawback in that the playback quality is likely to be degraded due to the packet loss and jitter caused by the bad network quality, and if no corresponding playback speed-formatted data exists, a specific speed playback cannot be supported.